


Electric Wave

by QueermoDelToro



Category: Papillon (2018)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gentle Kissing, Gentleness, Hand Jobs, How i wish things had gone on Devil's Island, I had way too much fun experimenting with writing styles here, Intimacy, Introspection, M/M, Mild Angst, Mild Gay Panic, Missing Scene, No Plot/Plotless, Soft boys being soft, Tenderness, excessive imagery, excessive use of metaphor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-08
Updated: 2020-09-08
Packaged: 2021-03-06 19:54:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,270
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26364517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueermoDelToro/pseuds/QueermoDelToro
Summary: How I wish the reunion on Devil's Island had actually gone.
Relationships: Henri "Papillon" Charriere/Louis Dega
Comments: 8
Kudos: 34





	Electric Wave

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this last year for my friend as a belated birthday and Christmas gift. I had a lot of fun writing it but now i have no desire to edit or revise. So fair warning in that respect. Otherwise i hope anyone who reads enjoys.
> 
> Inspired by [ this little nugget of information](http://variety.com/2018/film/news/papillon-charlie-hunnam-rami-malek-love-story-1202909987/) i found after scouring the internet for everything papillon-related after i watched the film.

It started with a spark.

A mere annoyance in the beginning, like a mosquito bite. So miniscule and obscure there was no reason to suppose it meant anything at all. 

But the feeling evolved. With time. In moments.

Whenever Dega's hand brushed Henri's or Henri clapped Dega's shoulder. When Dega’s eyes lit up like neon lights above the Moulin Rouge Cinema. In the moments Henri awoke to find Dega curled into the arch of his spine or they sat shoulder-to-shoulder in melting orange sunlight.

-

It wasn't until years later, on Devil's Island, Henri realized he craved the feeling. 

Once he acquainted himself with the spark, once he entertained the idea of its existence and allowed himself to know it as more than an indistinct, fleeting thing, he leaned into its clutches. It swelled and thrived in Henri's ribcage like the surf against the shoreline. Gnashing and writhing and unfurling. It filled him like a reservoir. Only then, once their bellies were full of food and a relative calm settled within their chests, did Henri begin to nurture and cradle the feeling as though it were a child, doing everything in his power to keep it safe and warm.

-

A few nights after their reunion, Henri and Dega sat together the way they once had: shoulders kissing, knees bumping, elbows jousting. Warm firelight curled around them, tickling their edges and curves.

Henri had never known the smell of skin and sweat to be beautiful and glorious and magnificent until Dega’s scent filled his nostrils, but now it was the only thing in the world Henri wanted to smell. He wanted to wrap himself in it like a winter coat until there was no way to differentiate between his own flesh and Dega's scent, to submerge his entire face into it and inhale it like oxygen, to sip on it like wine and become so intoxicated that his world spun like a carousel.

Henri was overwhelmed by it all. He was overwhelmed by the paintings on the ceiling and Dega’s long, unkempt hair. He was overwhelmed by Dega's confidence and the little wrinkles in his face. Mostly, Henri was overwhelmed by how Dega took care of him.

Lost in the flickering sunsets of his memory, melting now like orange sorbet, Henri let the spark consume him. Rather than turn away from the sensation as he had for so many years, Henri leaned forward to press his lips to Dega's.

Henri had been sure Dega felt the spark. He had been convinced the feeling between them was more than a metaphorical phenomenon, and indeed completely mutual. To Henri, the spark seemed tangible, like if he'd actually looked down to the spot where their skin touched he would see a small bundle of lightning tethering himself to Dega.

When Henri's lips connected to a spot near Dega's ear, he recoiled.

Henri apologized and scrambled to his feet. He stared at his toes, at the floor, at anything that wasn't Dega, and covered his mouth with his hands. After a moment of pacing, his mind reaching for apologies and explanations, Henri thrust himself toward the opposite side of the room to be engulfed by darkness. 

Maybe he'd been wrong. Maybe there was no spark. Maybe the thing Henri felt between them was borne out of physical and emotional desperation. Henri, after all, had spent seven years of his life locked away in a tiny cube with no human contact other than the hands serving him a bowl of gruel and a crude haircut. Maybe Henri was reading too far into Dega's actions. Maybe Dega took care of Henri out of obligation, payback for all the times Henri had come to Dega's rescue. 

There was nowhere for Henri to go, too weak and disoriented to fend for himself on an island of lunatics, but he pressed against the wall and closed his eyes so that he may pretend the waves outside were washing him away.

Later that night, Dega spoke to Henri's back. “I don't want to be your bitch.” They lie curled on a patch of floor in the corner of the room. Like old times, Henri thought. He stayed silent, afraid that if he spoke his words would rush forth like the tide and obliterate all the delicate things Dega carved into the sand. “It may be unwarranted now, after all this time, after so many years of people thinking it, but i don't want to just be your bitch.”

Henri turned to look at Dega. He studied Dega's face, searched Dega's eyes. Years and years of being locked away, but still there was truth. Still there was softness. Still there was fear. All the things most men lost in prison still swam in the unbridled lightness of Dega's entire being.

Henri's knuckles grazed Dega's cheek. “You were never my bitch.”

-

Days later, in the cool twilight, Dega came to him. Henri stared out into the rose-colored horizon, watched white swells pummel the amber sunset as haughty, disinterested clouds looked on from above. Dega did not speak, just stood beside Henri and joined the silence.

Dega, another instrument in nature's symphony. Henri, the conductor of waves.

Dega stood close enough for his elbow to jab Henri's funny bone. And though they were touching, Henri felt a vast space spread between them. A burn where once there had been a spark. Around them, seagulls cackled and insects zipped, mocking their outward perils and inward struggles alike. Henri thought to speak, thought to apologize for the things he said or didn't say or the things he thought or didn't think, but the moment Henri turned, Dega's lips absolved him of any rationality.

-

That night they lie beside each other, moonlight painting them both black and blue. Henri stared into the static and listened to the distant ocean lick the shoreline. He wanted the right words to come to him the way they once had, to fall onto his tongue and smooth out all the edges caused by seven years of disuse.

Dega's voice jolted Henri from his reverie.

"Papi."

A cool hand braced Henri's cheek and he allowed the touch to direct his attention to the man beside him. Dega lay on his side, his eyes intent on Henri's face. Dega caressed the cheek beneath his fingers, tracing the jaw to the temple and then back down to the scruffy chin, creating a cyclone inside Henri's gut.

“Papi,” Dega said again, and then leaned forward to slot their mouths together.

The kiss was gentler than their first, and more deliberate. Dega's lips dragged across Henri's, slowly carving a place for his tongue to breech. When Henri finally opened to him, Dega delved forward to taste the unctuous flesh within.

Henri closed his eyes and met Dega's kiss with vigor. His tongue braved the tenderest depths of Dega's mouth, warmed by the vibrations that ripped from Dega's chest. They explored and studied the topography of each other in earnest. They examined every facet. Every peak and valley, every ridge and line, every plane and curve and border. There was no part of Henri's mouth that Dega did not lay claim to, just as there was no part of Dega's mouth Henri was not willing to venture.

When Dega shifted closer to Henri, Dega’s hard member jutted into Henri's thigh. Henri's sigh shattered the silence, and Dega's hand slid from Henri's jaw, following the line of his neck to his collarbone and all the way down his sternum to the spot just below Henri's navel. Dega's hand stopped here, fingers brushing the taut flesh as his tongue coaxed velvety gasps from Henri's lips.

“Papi…” 

Dega pulled away from the kiss to look Henri in the eye. The moon let enough light into the room for Henri to see the question curving Dega’s eyebrows upwards.

Henri brought a shaky hand to Dega's face, traced along his cheekbone and thumbed at chapped lips. He stared into Dega's eyes for a long time, stomach roiling and churning like the waves on a stormy night. The silence dragged on, only the sound of ragged breathing to keep them company as Henri debated with himself, even going so far as to beat himself up. He had never been with another man, and indeed had never thought to until Dega came along. The feeling in his chest was a mix of excited relief and confused embarrassment. There was no denying that the affection he felt for Dega was more intimate than friendship. But Henri didn't know how to reconcile his present and his past, his new reality and his old. The truth of his feelings toward Dega were complicated by his inexperience and the intensity of his yearning. He longed for Dega's touch fiercely, but so did he fear it. 

Rather than answer, Henri pulled Dega down into another kiss. “You were never my bitch,” Henri muttered against Dega's lips, moving his own hand down the length of Dega's body. His hand slid below the waistband of Dega's pants. “You were never my bitch.” 

As Henri tasted Dega's flesh, it reminded him of the coconut Dega sent when Henri was locked away in solitary confinement. Henri's hands shook as he read the note, and the reservoir in his chest that had been trickling since the beginning cracked a little more. Rather than a trickle, a steady stream of DegaDegaDegaDega ran through Henri's mind on repeat. Sustaining him, motivating him, keeping him alive.

Henri swallowed a cry from Dega's throat as his fingers curled around Dega's hardness. He teased the tip, coaxing yips and whines from somewhere deep within Dega's belly. When his hand was slickened with precome, Henri moved down the length to squeeze, and then tugged back up. It took a few tries to work up a good pace but by the sounds Dega was making against his lips, there was no loss of pleasure in the ordeal.

Dega pulled his mouth from the kiss when Henri began stroking in earnest, and rested his forehead atop Henri's chin. He thrust in time with Henri's strokes, one hand under himself and the other clutching Henri's hip.

Henri supplied wet kisses to Dega's hairline as his fist quickened around Dega's cock. It had been so long since he'd touched anyone, including himself, Henri felt as though he had no idea what he was doing. His hands shook as though he were still a teenage virgin, but Henri let the sounds Dega made as his fingers glided across Dega's cock guide his movements.

Heat haloed them, expanding into an endless ring of desperation and desire, an endless wave, as endless as the ocean. The room around them swelled with need. It thickened with their breathing as sweat dampened their foreheads.

Dega's nose jabbed the underside of Henri's chin. His tongue laved and his teeth nipped at whatever parts of Henri he could reach: Henri's jaw, Henri's collar, Henri's neck. HenriHenriHenriHenri. Henri beside him, Henri's taste inside his mouth, Henri's hand around his cock. Everything in Dega's universe could be defined with Henri as the only constant variable.

Henri chased the sounds falling from Dega's lips. He squeezed and traced and swiped and teased every time Dega grunted or sighed or moaned or cried. When Dega's body shuddered and coiled, Henri sped his ministrations.

Dega muttered against Henri's skin, unintelligible words strung together to form an incoherent serenade. Henri wanted more, wanted the entire chorus, was greedy for the crescendo. Despite any fear or apprehension, Henri could listen to the song of their bodies for hours.

Henri kept a rigorous pace until Dega's body seized and he came hard over Henri's fist.

Dega collapsed and shoved his face into Henri's shoulder. Henri pulled him closer, pressing his lips to the exposed section of Dega's temple. The rush of their hearts mirrored the sound of the ocean.

-

For many years Henri thought the spark was borne of circumstance. That it was a fluke. That he had conjured it up during his delusions and had projected it into reality.

But looking back, Henri knew the truth. When he thought about the moment Dega came to see him in the infirmary, Henri remembered how Dega reached forward to grab his hand, and how their skin touched for the first time in two years. Henri remembered how his entire body bloomed. How his muscles relaxed at the same time flames kindled his flesh.The feeling was like a warm blanket squeezing him combined with complete spasmodic release. His heart thrummed and hammered against his sternum, and his temples pulsed. His limbs felt leaden. His gullet seized and shuddered like he was going to be sick, and he was overcome by the sense he'd die if Dega ever stopped touching him. Henri remembered how the feeling overcame him whenever their fingers glanced in any capacity, no matter how innocuous or small.

Henri knew it was real because the moments in his memory clung to him and filled him with a sense of wonder the same way orange sunsets used to: When Dega gingerly tapped Henri's hand as he dropped down during their last escape. When Dega cradled Henri's neck to whisper in his ear. When Dega jumped on Celier's back to save Henri's life. The shock in Dega's eyes when Henri returned for him after they'd been given up to the warden by Mother Superior.

Henri knew because it ended the same way it began: with his heart galloping in his chest as he clutched Dega close. Even after all these years, even after all this time, Henri still felt the spark.


End file.
